Vaal Orbs: How Corruption Works and When to Gamble

The Vaal Orb is Path of Exile's high-stakes gamble. It applies one random outcome to an item, some great and some ruinous, and the item becomes corrupted: normal currency can't modify it any more. Knowing when to Vaal is the whole skill.

What corruption does to gear

For ordinary socketed armour or weapons, common Vaal Orb outcomes include:

1. Nothing changes. The item is corrupted but otherwise identical.
2. A corrupted implicit. The item's implicit is replaced with a corruption implicit. This is usually the outcome you're gambling for.
3. The item is rerolled. It becomes a rare with new random mods. On a finished item that's a brick.
4. A socket change. Before 3.29 this could turn a socket white. Since 3.29 sockets are white by default, and this outcome turns a random white socket into a coloured one instead.

Because corruption locks the item, the risk is real. Vaal a finished item hoping for a better implicit, hit the reroll, and it's gone.

The odds, roughly

Do not treat “one in four” as a universal prediction for every corruptible item. Socketed equipment, jewels, gems and maps have different outcome rules. An implicit outcome also has a pool of possible modifiers, so its chance is not the chance of getting the exact implicit you want.

Check the current outcome pool for your exact item class, and compare the price of an already-corrupted copy with the cost of replacements. Never corrupt a finished item on the assumption that a useful implicit is guaranteed.

Maps are the exception

For maps, corruption is routine rather than a last gamble. A Vaal Orb can push a rare map past its normal mod limit, and that's how most 8-mod maps are made: fill maps to six mods, Vaal them all, and run the ones that hit. You expect to lose some, because maps are consumables. See efficient map rolling.

Where crafting fits

On gear, corruption is the last step:

1. Craft the item to completion with normal currency. See the beginner currency guide or influenced crafting.
2. Decide whether the corrupted-implicit upside justifies the brick risk.
3. Vaal, and accept the result. There's no undo.

Where Exiled Bench fits

On gear, Exiled Bench automates the crafting before the Vaal: it rolls the item to a finished, keepable state. The gamble at the end stays yours to take, one click, by hand.

On maps, corruption is part of the run. On the app's Maps page, After the target → Corrupt has two options:

• Targeted — Vaal only the maps that met your quantity, rarity and pack-size thresholds.
• Mass 6-mod — reroll away unwanted mods, fill each map to six mods with Exalts, then Vaal it. The Vaal only ever goes on a finished six-mod map. Stop a run early and the map is left uncorrupted.

Tips

• Buy a spare. For a build-defining corrupted implicit, it's often cheaper to buy an already corrupted item than to gamble your own.
• Finish everything else first. Eldritch implicits, Divines and bench crafts all need to happen before the Vaal.
• Never Vaal on impulse. If you'd be gutted to lose the item, don't.

Sources

• PoEDB: Vaal Orb and corruption modifier pool
• GGG: 3.29 patch notes